Brad Johnson: So, I want to start out by telling you a real-life Triad story. This story played out in the first year of Triad. As I record this, we’re almost five years into Triad’s existence. And it started with this very podcast that you’re either watching or listening to, because this individual binge-listened to a number of episodes. They were at a very well-known tech company on the West Coast. They were paid very well, and they were at a crossroads where really, “Hey, what is the future of what I want in life? Is it tech? I’m kind of intrigued by this financial industry.” And they reached out through the podcast and were an early Triad team member.
For context, our team was about 15, 20 at this time, so we made every mistake in the book. And if you’re looking who to blame, you’re looking at them right here. And as I look back, the lessons we learned from how this story played out, we had no job description. This was an individual that reached out, was intrigued by the company. We had no hiring process. We had no org chart at the time or vision for how this individual might fit into the bigger picture of Triad and what we were trying to build. And here’s a telltale warning of what not to do in business. This individual was incredibly intelligent, incredibly talented, great culture fit, great skillset, but what was missing was the context of what they actually showed up and were hired to do on the daily.
Seems simple, right? But this individual came in, moved to Kansas, and before long, we were getting questions from team members like, “Hey, what’s such and such’s job? They kind of came in to my office and we’re kind of figuring out what to do.” On the flip side of that, this individual’s like, “Hey, I see an opportunity to help here. I see an opportunity to help over here, but I don’t have clarity on, actually, what authority I have, where I need to actually dive in and help.” And I will say that the sad ending to this story, we had a very talented individual, great culture fit, well-liked among the team, and a few months later they resigned on their own accord because they said, “Hey, I’m just not really sure what the future looks like here, because there was no roadmap.”
And so, fortunately, we learned some lessons from that experience here at Triad. And today I’m going to dive into three very specific mistakes not only did we make, but I see many small businesses, many financial advisors make as they’re growing a team and transitioning from a financial advisor trying to go to a business owner. And we’re going to dive into that now. And make sure you’re sticking around for mistake number three, because it’s one of the biggest issues and one of the most common I see from a bunch of financial advisors out there. Okay. So, let’s get into mistake number one, but make sure you stick around for mistake number three. We’re going to share a real-life Triad tool to help fix what we see as the biggest mistake often made in finance.
Mistake number one, you don’t have a roadmap, let alone a vision for the team you’re trying to build. Okay. Let’s get out of finance for a second. Let’s go to sports. We got to talk about the Kansas City Chiefs. So, think about the Kansas City Chiefs, an organization, love them or hate them, that I think is hard to argue they’ve created the most modern dynasty in the NFL. Well, how did they do that? Zoom out, think organizationally, the Chiefs say, “We are going to build an NFL championship franchise.” Now, they have to start to look top-down structure. What does that need to look like? What does the organization, before we even get to the players on the field, how do we need to structure that when it comes to running the team, running the finances of the stadium, proper draft strategy? There’s all kinds of things that go into play before you even get to the players on the field. But if there’s not a clear vision and a clear structure, org chart, flow of communication, it’s broken before you even start.
So, it really starts with a high-level, top-down approach. And one of the most common things we see in finance, most of you don’t even have an org chart, and I don’t say that from a place of blame. Guess what? Guilty as charged. Triad, just here in the last couple of years, realized that was a big gap for us because what would happen is lines of communication as you grow from a team of 10 where you can all do one meeting in one conference room. The two-pizza rule, “Hey, everybody can join in together.” Well, as you start to grow, say you approach 40, 50, some of the larger firms we work with, now you can’t all fit in the same room, and now you have to develop divisions, leadership, lines of communication. And as you continue to grow, that gets more complicated. So, you need more thoughtful approach, more design.
In fact, if this is ringing true to you, in the comments, type ladders and levels. We don’t have time to get into that today, but that’s one of the early things where we developed levels inside of Triad. A level one would be an intern. A level eight or nine would be a founder. And now we’ve got career tracks, job descriptions, so that there’s actual congruency, pay scale, so you don’t have one team member that’s doing a similar job to this team member where there’s not alignment and not congruency across the organization. But that’s a whole another conversation. Getting back to the vision, it’s a big key. As you future cast, where you’re headed, what is going to break?
Here’s a great question to ask yourself. What will break if our business doubled? What I often see in finance is you hire too late, the team is burned out, you’re red line, and now you don’t have the opportunity to get the right people in because you’re too late to the game, and you’re putting fires out. You’re just like, “Hey, this person’s going to quit if we don’t get them some help.” And so, future casting, what would an org chart have to look like? What would a new business division have to look like if we doubled the amount of assets we’ve gathered next year? Really important to get ahead of that. And now you can start to empower your team leads to get ahead of that, track the metrics that it’s going to take to make sure you’re always hiring ahead.
And I heard it said one time, especially for a fast-growing organization, they would kind of do this start-stop where it’s almost like you’re driving a car with one foot on the gas, one foot on the brake. You’re kind of lurching down the road. And there was a light bulb moment where they said, “We’re a fast-growing organization. We are always looking for great talent on the team.” Obviously, making sure it fits the org chart and the need, but almost this constant approach to acquiring great talent just like you have a constant approach for acquiring great clients. So, that’s mistake number one, not having a vision, not having a roadmap for the team you’re building.
Here’s a quick tool, real-life that we use inside of Triad. It’s called Rippling, R-I-P-P-L-I-N-G. It is an HR tool. Think of it as here is the personnel and everything that ripples out from there. And it’s been a game changer for us, specifically on the org chart, and creating transparency as far as the lines of communication. So, you might check that out if that’s a problem you’re running into in your firm.
Onto problem number two. So, this one is so common. In fact, I was just leading a mastermind group. We have one with Michael Hyatt, and this came up no less than three times last week from some of our top offices. And it was not having a job description for those open roles on your team. And here’s a couple of things that might be symptoms if this is happening in your firm. Number one, you’re using team member names instead of job role names. So, “Hey, what should Joe do? Should we move Joe from position A to position B? Should Sally go from here to here?” So, if you find yourself constantly referencing team member names versus job description names, that’s symptom number one that leads to the outcome of throwing people at problems.
“Here’s the task of the day.” “Here’s the drive-by.” “Throw it on somebody’s desk.” “Hey, can you handle that?” which leads to a team full of generalists, which leads to an advisor-in-charge model where everything constantly comes back to the advisor, and you feel like when you leave the office, “Wow, did I get anything done today?” Well, here’s how you fix it. You start to create job descriptions. So, problem one, org chart. Now, as you drill down into that org chart, start to look at what are the actual descriptions to solve the problems inside of our business. And what sort of skillset does that require? How do they need to work with other team members?
And this is something we help fix all day, every day at Triad. It’s one of the biggest, most common mistakes we see in finance. And so, if you take a real-life example, back to the Chiefs. Imagine a football team on the field where nobody has a position. Patrick Mahomes is at receiver one play. Now, he’s at cornerback when they go to defense. That team, you would laugh. You would be like, “There is no chance in the world they’re winning a championship.” Yet that same problem persists in finance. Every day we see it where we will come in and have team members say, “What’s your position?” They’ll be, “Which one? I do about five. I’m new business on Mondays. I’m marketing for the next seminar. Sometimes I’m running first appointments.”
And as you think about that, the man or woman who chases many rabbits catches none. It’s a common issue, and it also leads to your team thinking of their role as a job that they clock in and clock out of, and what’s the random stuff that’s going to get thrown at me today versus a career track where you have advancement opportunities as you grow and specialize in a role that not only are you good at, but you enjoy doing. And so, that is one of the biggest mistakes we see is using names, looking at the current team versus looking at a job description based on the role you need filled and fitting either the right internal person on the team into that, or potentially if that person is not on your team, acquiring great talent externally to fill that role.
And I can tell you back to sports, every professional sports team is always looking to find the absolute best talent where the talent on their team, if it was here in ’23, they want it to be here in ‘24. If it was here in ’24, they want it to be here in ‘25. And I will tell you, if you’re constantly just looking at your current team, that’s going to get in the way of continuing to make the talent better each and every year your business exists.
So, on mistake number two, as a special thank you for you listening or watching in, out on YouTube, pinned directly in the comments, there is going to be a link where you can request a real-life job description from Triad. We solve this problem all day, every day for our members for how to hire an EA, an executive assistant. As my friend Michael Hyatt says, “If you don’t run your calendar, your calendar runs you.” The number one way to control your time is to hire an executive assistant, and we’ll give you a sample job description so that you can take a look at what that could look like inside of your firm.
On to mistake number three. You do not have a clear and repeatable hiring process. Back to the Chiefs. Imagine, would it even be possible to build a championship caliber team if you didn’t have a process for attracting and acquiring great talent? In the NFL, obviously, we have the NFL draft, but there is a very specific process when you onboard a new team member, introducing them into the locker room. Here’s the position that you’re going to play. Here’s your coach. Here’s the number on your jersey. Here’s the team we’re playing for. So, a lot of this applies, and what I’ve found as one of the biggest aha moments for a lot of our members is many of you all already have this problem solved. You’ve just solved it externally.
So, think about taking a prospect to a client. You have a very dialed-in process. Most of our firms run a three-step process. A first appointment, fact finder, second appointment, high-level before and after on the problems you uncovered in the first, making sure you can help them, and then once you engage with them, meeting number three, asset allocation, building the financial plan. Once you dial that in, that unlocks the key to scale a business bigger than you. Think about it. You’re at a cash register at McDonald’s. How do you open up the second cash register? The third cash register? You have to have a similar process. You have to sell the same product, and you have to be able to manufacture it over and over and over.
That’s exactly how it works in a financial services firm. Take that same concept externally. Now, point the fingers inward and think internally, how do we both attract and keep great talent? We need a very dialed-in process to make sure they check the culture box, the skillset box, and most importantly, make sure the founder doesn’t mess it up. Back to the story I opened this with. Who messed that up? It was the founder. We had no hiring process. We had no org chart. We had no job description. That whole opportunity there, which should have been an incredible opportunity with a very talented individual, became a complete mess because of us, our lack of processes and systems.
And what I’ve seen for the members where the light bulb clicks on is as soon as they realize I’m already doing this all day, every day to acquire clients, now I just have to do the same process to acquire and keep great talent on the team. It becomes so much simpler. So, high level, I’m going to walk through our key stops along the way for talent acquisition so that you can replicate it in your firm. Here we go.
Okay, so here’s a quick overview of our steps in order. Number one, they fill out an application through our website, TriadPartners.com/Careers. And as that comes in, there’s going to be a quick Zoom virtual meeting to make sure they check the culture fit test. Is this someone we see our team doing business and doing life with? Once they pass that, they proceed to step number two, which is an in-person interview based around the skillset that’s required for the job that we’re hiring for. Back to mistake number two, we start with the job description. Here are the list of candidates who best checks the box to fill that empty position on the team.
Then we get to three. What is the long-term alignment with that skillset and culture match to make sure they feel passionate about the mission we’re on here at Triad, do business, do life, help our members scale a business that’s bigger than them, that blesses their life, that doesn’t become their life, that creates freedom on both sides of that equation. And are they passionate about that? Do they care? Back to the Chiefs. Are they playing for the name on the front of the jersey versus the one on the back? Are they here long term to align with that mission? And that has made all the difference in the world.
And the last thing that we added most recently is what we call a pack protector. Many of you have heard the saying, “At Triad, we run as a pack.” That was actually originated from one of our members. And the last stop is a pack protector where we take current team members not in their division, and kind of interview them of like, “Hey, are you for real? Do you really want to be here? Is this just a job or is this something that you’re passionate about, that you’re driven to be a big part of building something bigger than yourself?” And that last stop, we just hired a C-level talent. He said, “This is the most intentional process I have ever seen or been through.” And he works for a very large institution in finance that we’re all familiar with. So, I think that’s the biggest key is making sure your process matches what’s the passion and the mission that you’re on, and then here are the people that are best going to all run to that North Star together.
Final tip on mistake number three. One of the most common things we see is the founders at the front end of this process versus at the end, and all of us founders typically were salespeople. The saying goes, “Salespeople are the most easily sold.” Make sure you don’t make that mistake. Empower the team, and then be the last step to make sure. Obviously, they’re aligned with your vision and where you want the firm to go.
Okay. So, in summary, hiring is not about luck. It’s about intention. And the biggest and most successful firms I’ve ever worked with that also happen to have freedom for themselves and their team, they do not break these three rules that I shared with you today. Number one, they have a roadmap and a vision for what they’re trying to build. Number two, they hire based on job descriptions, not on people’s names. And number three, they follow a duplicatable and repeatable hiring process.
So, now that we’ve laid out what to do, what’s the next step? As I said before, as a gift to you, I would love to offer everybody listening and watching in a real-life job description that we’ve created at Triad for the number one hire probably every financial services firm should make, and most of you don’t have. It’s called an executive assistant. Right down below in the comments, if you’re out on YouTube, if you’re listening on audio, just scroll into the show notes. There’s a link to put in your email so that you can grab that real-life job description. And also, I believe we’re queuing up another video to where we talk about why the EA role, the executive assistant role, is the number one most needed role in all of finance that none of you have. So, please check it out, and thanks for tuning in today. I hope you found this helpful.
And one final request as we wrap here today. If this helped you at all today, if any of these three mistakes, I helped you down the path to solving one of them, please hit subscribe, like the video. In fact, if you’ve got another financial advisor friend that might be struggling with one of these two, send this along. Help them out as well. And thank you for joining us for another episode. I’ll be back next week to do some more business, do some more life. We’ll see you soon.
